The merciless wind 😵 💨

Don’t set sail until you can chart a course; otherwise, you’re at the mercy of the wind.

Lots of partner professionals ignore this advice.

They pursue partners without a clear IPP, opt for quantity over quality, and leave executive alignment as an afterthought.

Eventually, they’ll have to course-correct.

But, trust me, it’s a pricey lesson.

Understand the rhythm of your business and your ICP, then define your IPP and partner strategy. That pre-work will save you resources in the future.

Keep reading for a proven strategy to determine your ideal partners.

How to determine your IPP

Early last week, I was in a meeting interviewing an incredible Partner Manager for a piece on deploying partner tech to your GTM teams. That content is coming soon, but what you need to know about the conversation is that we talked about IPP and what partner pros get wrong about it.

He’s a newer partner manager who first held a role at the company in sales, and his knowledge of the company’s ICP and internal operations along with his pre-established relationships proven immensely beneficial.

So, it got me thinking, what does a partner pro without this kind of experience do to get a similar amount of success?

Understand the value chain

In an episode of the Howdy Partners podcast, Will Taylor, Tom Burgess, and Ben Wright explained how IPP and the value chain lead to partnership success.

Your IPP is your ideal partner profile, the partners you’re going after and investing your resources in.

But to determine your IPP, you’ve got to understand 3 layers of value (aka, the value chain): your customer, your partner, and your company.

It’s a win-win-win trifecta.

I’ve outlined the questions you should ask yourself and be able to answer for each layer of the value chain.

Your Customer

• Who is your ICP?

• Who serves a similar ICP?

• When you go to your ICP’s watering holes, who else is there?

• What solutions are being pieced together, and what’s the job to be done your ICP is trying to fulfill?

Your Partner

• How does this partner win because of our partnership?

• How can I impact the objectives my partner cares about most?

• Who aligns with your company culture and work ethic?

Your Company

• What is the value you will receive?

• What areas of the customer lifecycle will this partnership impact?

• How can I translate this value to my Marketing, Sales, and Success teams in a way they’ll understand?

Partner pros like the one I interviewed, who get experience in other parts of the organization before they move to partnerships already understand the customer, the company, and their counterparts in marketing, sales, and CS.

There’s no doubt that experience makes it easier to develop a strong IPP.

But, any partner pro can do it.

You just have to have the grit to ask the right questions and seek answers.

Recruit your IPP with the help of Nelson Wang

You’ve established your IPP. Now what?

Don’t worry, your friendly neighborhood partner mentor is back again with another give.

In partnership with Nearbound.com and Partnership Leaders, Nelson Wang has put together a 26-slide deck to help you go after your IPP and scale your program with ease—the same way he has done with 1,400+ partners over the past 17 years at companies like Miro, Airtable, Box, Toptal, Optimizely, Cisco and VMware.

He is sharing it for free for the next 5 days, so get it while it’s hot!

Head of Partnerships in the top 25 new jobs

“Head of Partnerships” is the #24 fastest-growing job according to LinkedIn’s 2024 emerging jobs report.

As efficient growth becomes more of an industry standard, companies will further integrate both transactional and nontransactional partners into their business strategies.

Put simply—partner ecosystems are exploding, and the need for good partner professionals is exploding along with it.

Read the report here.

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